This is the blog archive of discussions on the YASMIN discussion list
= the art science technology discussion list around the Mediterranean
to join the discussion sign up at
http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions

Saturday, April 18, 2015

[Yasmin_discussions] Why do Science Films often have such terrible use of music or sound

Ale

thanks for point out the work of David Eagleman which isan amazing example of perceptual training- which allowsa person to 'feel' a data stream

in his case he has build a vest with mechanical stimuli and as thedata is fed intothe vest the human learns to detect patterns in the distrubution of stimuli ontheir back- he talks of deaf people being able to 'feel' the applauseof spectators-or even of the overall feeling of the stock market data as touchpatterns on their back

he mentions also taking sentiment analysis of twitter feeds intosensory physicalfeeling-this makes me think of roy ascott and his discussions of planetaryconsciousness- one could imagine wearing a vest whcih would allow youto 'sense' the emotions of people in a different location

my example of sonification data is indeed only one example where thereare many new possible modes of helping us find and understand patternsin large data sets- when as eagleman points out the senses that humanshave are an accident of evolution- immersive data is a new sensorysituation and our visual coortex is badly designed for the kinds ofpattern finding we now need to do- we have great edge detectorsbut lousy complex network structure detectors !

that you co directed the fantastic Gravedad de los Asuntoswhich took nine mexican artists into zero gravity

La Gravedad de los Asuntos (The Gravity of Issues), a projectinvolving nine artists and scientists that will explore concepts ofgravity and develop work to be realized in Gravity Zero ParabolicFlights. I co-directed this project with Nahum Mantra and Juan JoséDíaz Infante, in collaboration with the Laboratorio Arte Alameda andthe National Institute of Nuclear Science UNAM, among otherinstitutions.

gravity is another example of a sense that is an accident of evolutionon our planet- and indeed as people go intozero gravity they have to go through intensive perceptual training tore calibrate their systems that have been totally designedonly to work well in one gravity

anyway- i suspect we will consider the crude use of music in sciencefilms today as very primitivea few hundred years from now when we have figured out how to do fullmulti modal immersion in data !

> yasminers>> I thought i would inject a different line of discussion about the role> of sound or music accompanying science communications films>> here is an extreme example of music composed that actually> "plays' the data>> What would LHC sound like if it was a heavy metal band>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXEnDM3hydM>> it is described as higgs boson sonification>> but more seriously- in scientific data analysis visualisation is a dominant> mode of presentation and the use of other modes of perception rarely used-> now however with many scientists putting their data into game engines-many> new modes of navigation through data are possible- including using sound> as a perceptual aid or addition that helps scientists understand/look for> patterns in their data- there is a growing community of researchers> working on> data sonification in general>> my colleague scot gresham lancaster is the producer of the sound and data> channel on Creative Disturbance art-science podcast platform:>> http://creativedisturbance.org/channel/sound-data/>> where he discusses with various experts aspects of data and sound>> some of the motivation for all this is tied to what Eleanor Gibson termed> "perceptual learning">>> http://psych.nyu.edu/adolph/publications/AdolphKretch-inpress-GibsonTheory.pdf>> On Gibson's (1969) account, perceptual learning entails an increased> ability to extract relevant> information from a stimulus array as the result of experience. The> traditional view of perceptual> learning, dating back to Bishop Berkeley in the 1700s, is that animals> must learn to perceive; the> information at sensory receptors is impoverished and meaningless and> thus a complete percept> requires learning. In Gibson's view, the information at receptors is> sufficient to support complete> percepts from the start, and thus animals needn't learn to perceive;> rather, they perceive to learn> (E. J. Gibson, 1989, July). Perceptual learning is the key to> knowledge and where it all begins>>> http://psych.nyu.edu/adolph/publications/AdolphKretch-inpress-GibsonTheory.pdf>> the fact is that in every day cognition/perception we 'toggle' between> sensory modes> seamlessly as the best way to "extract information from a stimulus array"-> yes> in scientific communication we use music or sound as an accompaniment> rather> than as a perceptual learning tool>> it seems to me this is a growing trend in scientific communication>> does anyone have other examples of project that 'play the data ' ?>>--...*Ale de la Puente*

SBSCRIBE: click on the link to the list you wish to subscribe to. In the page that will appear ("info page"), enter e-mail address, name, and password in the fields found further down the page.HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: on the info page, scroll all the way down and enter your e-mail address in the last field. Enter password if asked. Click on the unsubscribe button on the page that will appear ("options page").TO ENABLE / DISABLE DIGEST MODE: in the options page, find the "Set Digest Mode" option and set it to either on or off.If you prefer to read the posts on a blog go to http://yasminlist.blogspot.com/